would you just quit?

[Shadowrat]

My wife is working at a job that's turning into a nightmare. She's tasked with laying out a catalog. She works in indesign for this job and basicly takes text and photos from people and puts them together in a way that's pretty.

She's been kind of frustrated lately. The current project is due to go to the printer in 6 days. She hasn't recieved the text or the photos yet. Plus a host of IT issues keep coming up and impeding the process.

Today she sent her manager an email voicing her concern that the deadline is not going to be met. I think it's a good thing to bring up. apparently her manager doesn't want to hear about it.

The dialog (names have been changed):

Mrs Shadowrat:
"My Mac seems to be working OK for now... I did contact the help desk and
tell them so.

On another note, I am very concerned about the timeline of this catalog. I
now have little more than a week to do this, with not a lot of assets to
work with yet. Is it possible to get some help so we can try to keep on
target? I'm doing all that I can."


Her manager:
"Honestly, there is nothing we can do to speed up the process. It's a tight deadline and we have many of these at this company. Kari and Vanessa are doing their best to get images edited and will get them to you as soon as they can.

Unlike everyone else here, you have one project to work on. I'm quite shocked to hear you would try to pass half of it off to someone else. The complaints and concerns need to stop and you need to focus on getting as much prepped as possible to knock the work out next week. Get the layouts, especially the ones with many on-figure shots as tight as possible. in terms of the "big" important spreads like Euro Sport, HYP, Minis, NPL...get those prepped as well, they need to feel large and important.

Stay in touch with Vanessa and Kari in terms of getting images. I want to be clear, I do not want any negativity associated with the process of putting together this book.
"


WTF? in my opinion, i'd want to be notified that our project is in jeopardy. I'd be pissed if someone on my team just pretended everything was fine, then on the last day i found out it wasn't going to happen.

[Tai]

I've already told you, I think she should quit AND explain to the boss why he's such an idiot.

[armerius]

This is just ridiculous. the boss is clearly an imbecile and her co-workers aren't doing their jobs efficiently. If it becomes too frustrating... quit, but make certain to tell the boss why he's such an idiot (and maybe inform the clients of the situation)

[jackrabbit]

She's WAY too talented to be putting up with shit like that. If she's not already looking for something else, she should be. For me, the point at which you have to quit a job is when it starts negatively affecting your life while you're not at work - particularly if you're not in a position to change it.

It doesn't sound like she'll be able to use the place as a reference anyhow, but I'd be careful not set fire to bridges if you can leave them scorched but intact. Her portfolio is likely strong enough that references are secondary. She's organized and practical enough to know when she's overworked, and normally that's a trait that carries more value. I don't know if I'd quit outright, but I'd certainly be laying the groundwork for leaving. If nothing else, it will help bring some much needed distance from the job for her.

[Reaver]

I never understand how incompetent asshole bosses ever get to be bosses.

If dickwad has a superior, I would just make sure to document and save all correspondence pertaining to this dillhole retard. Then if the catalog missed deadline, she'll at least have some back up ammo for defense.

Of course, if that company allows a jizz swilling numbnuts like that to be in charge of anything more than a garbage can, it might all just fall on deaf ears anyway.

[LogRoller]

if there are plenty of jobs around, sure.

if you need the money and jobs are tight, i'd do what he says no matter how dickish he is. people like this exist everywhere in business. it sounds like she's going to have to pull extra hours to get this thing done.

[Q]

I'd say it depends entirely on your financial situation. The economy sucks right now and jobs in a lot of sectors are hard to come by.

If you'll be comfortable on one income, I'd probably lean towards quitting and not having to deal with that crap.

[Circuit]

I agree with Q and Log. It's rotten to put up with bullshit like that, but if you're not in a position financially to just leave, it's best to suck it up until you can find something better. I'm in a similar situation and all I can do is continue searching out better employment until I can give the dummies I work for the finger. The email from that manager just makes it sound like he would rather just plug his ears and go "lalalala" instead of actually trying to fix the problem. Seems pretty idiotic if the project is ultimately his responsibility. Even worse, if there are problems with his employees that are causing these delays, one would assume it's in his best interest to address them. People are odd.

[Shadowrat]

i've advised her to just quit. we can survive on my income alone. I'd have to put off big purchases, like a laptop, drums, and snowboard, but i'm happy to sit at home and keep my happy wife company.

And i don't think her coworkers are dropping the ball. Their IT infrastructure is shit. her computer is several years old. They ask her to work late hours and weekends, but won't provide her with a notebook to work remotely from. well they had one notebook that everyone could use, but it got ruined in mexico last week.

I'm pretty sure all the problems stem from this one manager who defined a crazy timeline without any real plan of how the work was going to happen, or any contingency in case something went wrong.

[Creole Ned]

I'd just quit. In fact, I've done that in the past, without having anything lined up (and which also means you can't get unemployment insurance). I've made it through each time and never regretted it. The difference between a bearable but crappy job and one that is just plain crappy is gigantic in terms of how it affects your mental health. I won't leave myself in a place like that for any length of time.

[Tai]

I like the way they fired the two employees who knew how to work the NAS system. Want me to write up a fun "I quit!" script for her to use? :)

[Shadowrat]

Yeah, here's the problem. She's a contractor placed by an agency. If she just walks off the job and forwards that email to the ceo (like i suggested), she's kind of damaging the agency. And she doesn't want to do that.

She has contacted the agency to tell them about the situation and try to get something else. In the meantime, she's trying to just see this as funny. and take the paycheck.

I got some more information about the project last night. Apparently the plan was to do a 50 page catalog in 2 weeks. I don't know the level of page layout experience anyone here has, but you have to figure at least 4 hours per page for a crummy catalog. This was supposed to look nice. That would mean interesting cropping on photos. big photo spreads that took up whole pages with text integrated in it, masking people out of backgrounds, etc. There's NO WAY that any sane person could figure 2 weeks for that.

On top of that, they planned to start doing the catalog before any photos were even taken. Their plan was: week 1: Go to mexico and start taking pictures. Send pictures to layout artist as they are taken and build catalog simultaneously. week 2: finish catalog and profit.

That's the stupidest plan i ever heard! they got to mexico, had bad weather, equipment broke, and they couldn't send pictures back. Disregard the fact that their timeline was wack to begin with, they assumed that nothing would go wrong ever, EVER?! wtf?

[Tai]

Sounds like government.

[Creole Ned]

Yeah, I should clarify that I'm not advocating she just quit abruptly and leave everything hanging. But laying out the groundwork to leave ASAP would be my priority.

And having done some layout work in the past (both on computer and the old-fashioned cut and paste kind), I can say their plan and schedule is something derived from a fanciful imagination untethered and unburdened by reality.

[Tai]

is something derived from a fanciful imagination untethered and unburdened by reality.

sounds like me! :)

[Shadowrat]

sounds like her representative from the agency understands the situation, and they are working on finding her a new position.

[Tai]

yay! :)

[Patton]

i have to applaud her patience. if i ever got an e-mail like that back in response to a legitimate concern, i would have lost my shit.

[jackrabbit]

Yeah, but you lose your shit when someone's TV is too loud.